CHAPTER XXX. MRS. SEACOLE'S
In a dense fog, and under a thin cold rain, the “Tigris” steamed slowly into the harbor of Balaklava. She had been chartered by the Government, and sent out with some seventy thousand pair of shoes, and other like indispensables for an army much in want, but destined to be ultimately re-despatched to Constantinople,—some grave omissions in red tapery having been discovered,—whereby she and the shoes remained till the conclusion of the war, when the shoes were sold to the Russians, and the ship returned to England.
Our concern is not, however, with the ship or the shoes, or the patent, barley, the potted meats, or the “printed instructions” with which she was copiously provided, but with two passengers who had come up in her from Constantinople, and had, in a manner, struck up a sort of intimacy by the way. They were each of them men rather advanced in life; somewhat ordinary in appearance, of that commonplace turn in look, dress, and bearing that rarely possesses attraction for the better-off class of travellers, but, by the force of a grand law of compensations, as certainly disposes them to fraternize with each other. There are, unquestionably, some very powerful affinities which draw together men past the prime of life, when they wear bad hats, seedy black coats very wide in the skirt, and Berlin gloves. It is not alone that if they smoke the tobacco is of the same coarse kind, and that brandy-and-water is a fountain where they frequently meet, but there are mysterious points of agreement about them which develop rapidly into close intimacy, and would even rise to friendship if either of them was capable of such a weakness.
They had met, casually, at “Miseri's” at Constantinople, and agreed to go up the Black Sea together. Now, though assuredly any common observer passing them might not readily be able to distinguish one from the other again, both being fat, broad-shouldered, vulgar-looking men of about fifty-four or more, yet each was a sort of puzzle to the other; and in the curiosity thus inspired, there grew up a bond between them that actually served to unite them.
If we forbore any attempt at mystification with our valued reader in an early stage of this history, it is not now, that we draw to its close, we would affect any secrecy. Let us, therefore, at once announce the travellers by their names; one being Terry Driscoll, the other the Reverend Paul Classon.
Driscoll had dropped hints—vague hints only—that he had come out to look after a nephew of his, a kind of scapegrace who was always in trouble; but in what regiment he served, or where, or whether he was yet alive, or had been broke and sent home, were all little casualties which he contemplated and discussed with a strange amount of composure. As for Paul, without ever entering directly upon the personal question, he suffered his ministerial character to ooze slowly out, and left it to be surmised that he was a gentleman of the press, unengaged, and a Christian minister, unattached.
Not that these personal facts were declared in the abrupt manner they are here given to the reader. Far from it; they merely loomed through the haze of their discourse as, walking the deck for hours, they canvassed the war and its objects, and its probable results. Upon all these themes they agreed wonderfully, each being fully satisfied that the whole campaign was only a well-concerted roguery,—a scheme for the dismemberment of Turkey, when she had been sufficiently debilitated by the burden of an expensive contest to make all resistance impossible. Heaven knows if either of them seriously believed this. At all events, they said it to each other, and so often, so circumstantially, and so energetically that it would be very rash in us to entertain a doubt of their sincerity.
“I have been recommended to a house kept by a Mrs. Seacole,” said Classon, as they landed on the busy quay, where soldiers and sailors and land-transport men, with Turks, Wallachs, Tartars, and Greeks, were performing a small Babel of their own.
“God help me!” exclaimed Terry, plaintively, “I 'm like a new-born child here; I know nobody, nor how to ask for anything.”
“Come along with me, then. There are worse couriers than Paul Classon.” And bustling his way through the crowd, his Reverence shouldered his carpet-bag, and pushed forward.
It was, indeed, a rare good fortune for Terry to have fallen upon a fellow-traveller so gifted and so accomplished; for not only did Paul seem a perfect polyglot, but he possessed that peculiar bustling activity your regular traveller acquires, by which, on his very entrance into an inn, he assumes the position less of guest than of one in authority and in administration. And so now Paul had speedily investigated the resources of the establishment, and ordered an excellent supper, while poor Driscoll was still pottering about his room, or vainly endeavoring to uncord a portmanteau which a sailor had fastened more ingeniously than necessary.
“I wish I knew what he was,” muttered Terry to himself. “He 'd be the very man to help me in this business, if I could trust him.”
Was it a strange coincidence that at the same moment Paul Classon should be saying to himself, “That fellow's simplicity would be invaluable if I could only enlist him in our cause; he is a fool well worth two wise men at this conjuncture”?
The sort of coffee-room where they supped was densely crowded by soldiers, sailors, and civilians of every imaginable class and condition. Bronzed, weather-beaten captains, come off duty for a good dinner and a bottle of real wine at Mother Seacole's, now mingled with freshly arrived subs, who had never even seen their regiments; surgeons, commissaries, naval lieutenants, Queen's messengers, and army chaplains were all there, talking away, without previous acquaintance with each other, in all the frankness of men who felt absolved from the rule of ordinary etiquette; and thus, amid discussions of the campaign and its chances, were mingled personal adventures, and even private narratives, all told without the slightest reserve or hesitation: how such a one had got up from his sick-bed, and reported himself well and fit for duty, and how such another had pleaded urgent private affairs to get leave to go home; what a capital pony Watkins had bought for a sovereign, what execrable bitter beer Jones was paying six shillings the bottle for; sailors canvassing the slow advances of landsmen, soldiers wondering why the blue-jackets would n't “go in” and blow the whole mock fortifications into the air; some boasting, some grumbling, many ridiculing the French, and all cursing the Commissariat.
If opinions were boldly stated, and sentiments declared with very little regard for any opposition they might create, there was, throughout, a tone of hearty good-fellowship that could not be mistaken. The jests and the merriment seemed to partake of the same hardy character that marked each day's existence; and many a story was told with a laugh, that could not be repeated at the “Rag,” or reported at the Horse Guards. Classon and Driscoll listened eagerly to all that went on around them. They were under the potent spell that affects all men who feel themselves for the first time in a scene of which they have heard much. They were actually in the Crimea. The men around them had actually just come off duty in the trenches: that little dark-bearded fellow had lost his arm in the attack of the Mamelon; that blue-eyed youth, yonder, had led a party in assault on the Cemetery; the jovial knot of fellows near the stove had been “plotting” all night at the Russians from a rifle-pit. There was a reality in all these things that imparted a marvellous degree of interest to individuals that might otherwise have seemed commonplace and ordinary.
Amidst the noisy narratives and noisier commentaries of the moment, there seemed one discussion carried on with more than usual warmth. It was as to the precise species of reward that could be accorded to one whose military rank could not entitle him to the “Bath.”
“I tell you, Chidley,” cried one of the speakers, “if he had been a Frenchman there would have been no end of boasting amongst our amiable allies, and he 'd have had Heaven knows what grade of the Legion and a pension, besides! Show me the fellow amongst them could have done the feat! I don't speak of the pluck of it,—they have plenty of pluck; but where's the rider could have sat his horse over it?”
“What height was it?” asked another, as he leisurely puffed his cigar.
“Some say six feet,—call it five, call it four, anything you please: it was to go at a breastwork with two nine-pounders inside, that was the feat; and I say, again, I don't know another fellow in the army that would have thought of it but himself!”
“Dick Churchill once jumped into a square and out again!”
A hearty roar of laughter announced the amount of credit vouchsafed to the story; but the speaker most circumstantially gave time and place, and cited the names of those who had witnessed the fact.
“Be it all as you say,” interposed the first speaker, “Churchill did a foolhardy thing, without any object or any result; but Conway sabred three gunners with his own hand.”
If the story, up to this moment, had only interested our two travellers by its heroic claims, no sooner was the name of Conway uttered than each started with astonishment. As for Classon, he arose at once, and, drawing near the narrator, politely begged to know if the Conway mentioned was a one-armed man.
“The same, sir,—Charley the Smasher, as they used to call him long ago; and, by George, he has earned some right to the title!”
“And he escaped unhurt after all this?” asked Classon.
“No, I never said that; he was almost hacked to pieces, and his horse had four bullets in him and fell dead, after carrying him half-way back to our lines.”
“And Conway, is he alive? Is he likely to recover?” asked Paul, eagerly.
“The doctors say it is impossible; but Charley himself declares that he has not the slightest intention of dying, and the chances are, he 'll keep his word.”
“Dear me! only think of that!” muttered Driscoll, as, with a look of intense simplicity, he listened to this discourse. “And where is he now, sir, if I might make so bould?”
“He's up at the Monastery of St George, about eight miles off.”
“The Lord give him health and strength to go and fight the Russians again!” said Terry; and the speech, uttered in a tone so natural and so simple, was heard with a general laugh.
“Come over to this table, my old buck, and we 'll drink that toast in a bumper!” cried one of the officers; and with many a bashful expression of pleasure Mr. Driscoll accepted the invitation.
“Won't your friend join us?” asked another, looking towards Classon.
“I must, however reluctantly, decline, gentlemen,” said Paul, blandly. “I cannot indulge like my respected friend here; I stand in need of rest and repose.”
“He doesn't look a very delicate subject, notwithstanding,” said a subaltern, as Classon retired.
“There 's no judging from appearances,” observed Driscoll. “You 'd think me a strong man, but I 'm weak as a child. There's nothing left of me since I had the 'faver,' and I 'll tell you how it happened.”